Schumacher `back in business' in search of another title

Formula One: World champion Michael Schumacher was content with his return to the Formula One training circuit in Barcelona in…

Formula One: World champion Michael Schumacher was content with his return to the Formula One training circuit in Barcelona in his bid for another title with Ferrari in 2001.

"It's nice to be back. I wouldn't say back to school because I'm too old now," Schumacher joked after marking his return to the Catalonian circuit.

He added: "It's nice to be back in the business, in the car."

Schumacher completed 43 laps and registered the second-best time of the field.

READ MORE

Schumacher's burning ambition is to win another world title, and he says that it doesn't matter how he does it - that Ferrari claims another title is all that really matters.

"You have to fight as usual. Nothing's different except that maybe it will be less difficult. We have lost the pressure of not having won the title for 21 years."

Schumacher will test drive Ferrari's new car next week, but added: "I'm not interested if the new Ferrari looks good. I don't care about how good it looks. All I'm interested in is if it's fast."

Cricket: The International Cricket Council (ICC) yesterday played down the controversy sparked by Mark Waugh's refusal to co-operate with Australia's top match-fixing investigator.

The Australian batsman decided, on the advice of his lawyers, to decline an interview with Greg Mellick, the Australian Cricket Board's special investigator.

Mellick and the ICC's Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) chief Paul Condon had planned to interview Waugh early next month over match-fixing allegations contained in an Indian police report.

But, despite initially warning they would take a "very dim view" of non co-operation, the ICC believe it is just a matter of time before Waugh complies.

Boxing: Prince Naseem Hamed's Las Vegas debut against Mexican Marco Antonio Barrera was confirmed yesterday. Hamed, the former WBO featherweight champion who was stripped of his title in November for refusing to fight number one contender, Hungarian Istvan Kovacs, will meet Barrera at the MGM Grand on April 7th - his fifth fight in America.

Sheffield-born Naseem remains undefeated after 35 fights, including 31 knock-outs. Barrera has fought 56 times, losing only three and piling up 37 stoppages in his career.

Cycling: Tour de France mountain king Richard Virenque said yesterday that all riders would refuse drugs if they could and that he felt wrecked by his suspension.

Virenque was banned for nine months in December by the Swiss federation after admitting that he had knowingly taken illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

"I can tell you one thing. If they (riders) had the choice, 100 per cent of the riders will not go on dope," he told the daily Le Monde. "At first, doctors give you advice. They help you to recover physically after a race," Virenque said. "It's not doping, you just heal yourself. But once you start to take stuff it's just like being caught in a trap."

Athletics: Two world 3,000 metres steeplechase records set by Romania's Cristina Iloc-Casandra last season were officially ratified by the International Athletics Federation (IAAF) yesterday.

Iloc-Casandra set the first world record of nine minutes 43.64 seconds in Bucharest on August 7th, and went on to wipe almost three seconds off the time when setting 9:40.20 only 23 days later.